Szalit-Marcus, Rachel
SZALIT-MARCUS, RACHEL
SZALIT-MARCUS, RACHEL (1894–1942), painter and book illustrator. She spent her childhood in Lodz. Her parents, simple working people, encouraged her artistic talent, and in 1911 sent her to Munich to study at the Art Academy. Here she met Julius Szalit, a successful Jewish actor, whom she married. Szalit later committed suicide. In 1916 Rachel moved to Berlin, where she exhibited with the artists of the Secession group and became a member of the November group, young avant-garde artists who joined forces after the November Revolution of 1918. When the Nazis assumed power Rachel Szalit-Marcus fled to France. In 1942 she was arrested and sent to a concentration camp where she died. She painted portraits, flower pieces, and still-lifes. Her best-known works consist of lithographic illustrations to books by Mendele Mokher Seforim, Shalom Aleichem, Israel Zangwill, Heinrich Heine, and Martin Buber.
[Elisheva Cohen]